Guest Review: Lunch at Disney’s Hollywood Brown Derby

She brings us to the Hollywood Brown Derby at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, Walt Disney World.Let’s do lunch…

This signature restaurant celebrates the golden age of Hollywood. And since it’s inside a theme park, there’s no need to dress up!

Main Dining Room

Here are some pictures from my recent lunch at Hollywood Brown Derby.

First up: Butternut Squash Soup. Very nice!

Butternut Squash Soup

Then three words that make me smile — Venison Osso Bucco — and it was good as it sounds or even better.

Venison Osso Bucco

Followed by pick your own dessert.

Dessert Menu

You can pick whatever you want you, so my three choices were: two of the chocolate spheres and the milk chocolate creme with mojito concoction. The spheres were good, but the one with mojito was a little odd.

Trio of Desserts

The mojito was a jelly like center in the middle of the chocolate mousse. Interesting, but not my favorite.

Comments

The last time we were at Hollywood Studios (September), they opened up the outside patio for drinks and we were able to order off of the lunch menu out there. We just did some of the appetizers (the charcuterie plate was AMAZING!) and the trio of deserts, but it was really nice sitting out on the patio there with a glass of wine. Would definitely do that again.

We were there in early December 2014 for dinner, we were disappointed. Perhaps we just had an off day from our server? My husband’s entree came 15 minutes before the rest of our party, turns out he was served the plate that should have gone to an unlucky guest at a different table. I ordered black coffee and received a cappuccino. No water refills.

Had heard rave reviews about the cobb salad and the grapefruit cake, neither was a hit with our party. The pan seared grouper was OK, but nothing we’d order again.

One of our party ordered the noodle bowl, that was our favorite dish of the meal.

I’d try again for appetizers and drinks on the patio like another commenter mentioned, but I don’t think we’ll be eating another full meal there. We’ll be heading to Epcot for meals after touring Studios from now on.

I love the mini dessert options at Brown Derby, but I learned last night that if you are using the Fantasmic Dining Package then you do not get to choose your desserts. When it came time to order dessert, I was brought a trio of mini desserts, and the waiter explained it as “the Fantasmic dessert.” The trio included the mini grapefruit cake, the creme brûlée, and the chocolate sphere. While I enjoyed them, it would have been nice to choose the desserts.

This is one of the few table service meals we do because my aunt loves their cobb salad. It’s her only request (I do all the meal planning), but not my favorite place. I admit that I’m a picky eater and the only thing that appeals to me from their menu is the steak (which I refuse to pay that much for). I always end up getting the grilled chicken breast off the kids menu, which they let me do without argument (which is nice as I’ll turn 40 this year). We will keep going back though because their cobb salad is her favorite meal at WDW.

As for service, I tend to schedule meals early or late to avoid crowds but on our last trip it took so long to get our food they brought out complementary bowls of the lobster bisque soup. Not sure what the issue was we were seated at 11 and the place wasn’t even 1/4 full, but the food took forever and my kids meal was the only thing that required actual cooking.

Derby has always been a favorite of ours. We’ve gone since it opened and never had a bad meal… lunch or dinner…. until last week.
Ordered the appetizer size Cobb which was really minuscule.
Each of us ordered the fettuccine Alfredo with chicken. We could each put our fork into the fettuccine and pull up the entire portion. It was uneatable. The pasta obviously had sat around until it coalesced into a glob. There was very little cream sauce to be found and the chicken was just tossed on top, cold, hard, and tasteless. My wife and I looked at each other in shock. This would have been the last place on Disney property we would have expected this. We called our waiter over and handed him our full dishes. Manager didn’t charge us for the pasta or the Cobb, but did for the glass of wine we shared. !!!